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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Agriculture=Honkyfication

Many readers have had a hard time accepting my claim that agriculture is the root of all evil. I believe that my four part series Missing the Forest for the Field has made a convincing case, but in an effort to be even more convincingesque, I offer perhaps the most damning evidence of all...

Agriculture created white people.

That's right, honkies, crackers, anthropomorphic mayonnaise... whatever you want to call them, these white devils are a DIRECT result of agriculture.

Until recently, scientist thought that populations simply evolved to have lighter (i.e., pasty) skin as they migrated north in latitude. Now it turns out that AGRICULTURE is the cause...

3 comments:

How do Eastern civilizations fit into this theory? Populations with darker-than-pasty skin, but also with long standing agricultural practices. And then I also wonder about fish consumption so prevalent in Scandinavia (and Far-Eastern countries) that should have offset vitamin D deficiencies, though according to the article discussed in the blog "English" ancestors (wonder if they were singled out for statistics fudging purposes) moved away from high fish consumption 5000 years ago. But the blog's author brings up my question about the paradox of how do Asians with high fish consumption fit into this theory. Good theories tend not to have big loose ends.

Regardless, I still think the paleo diet is amazing. (She says while eating a bagel.)

I had a lot of the same questions that Lisa brings up when I read this article, not to mention that the way it's written makes me seriously question whether the author has a tight grasp on how evolution actually works. The fact that so many people were left wondering (in the comments section) whether white people were therefore more advanced than other people really leaves something to be desired about the state of popular science journalism. It really seems to imply that there is some overarching goal to evolution rather than just a series of random advantages and adaptations that lead to some traits being favored in breeding. Still, the most persuasive whole in this argument would seem to be the Scandinavian one. I like my idea that, like leggy plant seedlings, Scandinavians got really effing tall in an attempt to get more sunlight. Joke . . .